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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well, this is a mixed bag, 6 Nov 2003
By A Customer
Three short novels (well, The Poison Belt is a novella at most) and two short stories of wildly varying quality (but consistently compelling readability: at its worst, this is still Doyle). First up, The Lost World: almost too well known to need a review, this is a thrilling adventure story to which I was first introduced as an infant and have reread several times since, and ensures Doyle's place in the pantheon of science fiction's pioneers (although it arguably owes more to Rider Haggard than to Verne and Wells). It is THE dinosaur story, and let nobody tell you otherwise. After this rattling yarn comes The Poison Belt, frankly a rather bizarre offering, with very little incident - in filmability stakes, the very reverse of The Lost World; but a clever and well-constructed piece, nonetheless. Make sure you read The Lost World first, and know and love the characters before embarking on the second novel with them. And then... well, the previous reviewers have already ripped The Land of Mist to shreds, and deservedly so. It begins by stating that the previous novels were fictional but their characters real - the point being that Doyle wishes to dissociate this defence of Spiritualism from his works of science fiction, with which it is in fact unworthy to be classed. Somehow Challenger the radical has become a closed-minded reactionary, representing just the sort of scientists he confounded before; and there are many other inconsistencies. Some are minor (a poison whose name Challenger forgot in The Poison Belt, and cried "Excellent!" on being reminded, now turns out to be connected to a dark secret in his past); others more serious (the Challenger who in The Poison Belt referred to "the Great Gardener" and the "uncertainty" of what happens after death has been transformed into a convinced atheist - although, of course, he becomes a Spiritualist in the end). Two chapters rise above, or at least out of, the mire of Spiritualist propaganda: the one which deals with an exorcism attended by Ed Malone and Lord John Roxton has some of the earlier novels' sense of excitement and adventure; and that dealing with the home life of the fraudulent medium Silas Linden seems to belong in another book altogether. It exists because Doyle trod in Dickens' footsteps as a social reformer, and, indeed, it evokes Dickens' work: but the horrific scenes of child abuse contained therein will turn some readers' stomachs. From this unwholesome fare we turn to the short stories - light-hearted offerings in the vein of The Lost World, crammed with Doyle's (and Challenger's) trademarks of wit, humour and utterly preposterous science. For these alone the book is worth the cover price (so far as I am aware, they are not available elsewhere, unlike the novels). It might be wise, unless early twentieth-century Spiritualism and the follies into which even intelligent men could be led by it are an especial study of yours, to skip The Land of Mist; but the rest of this volume would be an ornament to any library.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One man's descent from scientist to fanatic, 5 May 2000
By A Customer
I agree entirely with the previous reviewer, but would add that the real surprise about The Land of Mist's fascinating awfulness is that the previous story - The Poison Belt - is one of Conan Doyle's most artful works. An exciting mix of comedy and adventure story, as befits the sequel to The Lost World, it is also a metaphysical joke, so self-aware that, had it been written a generation later, it would have been called 'post-Modern'. As for The Land of Mist, the previous reviewer is spot on when he points out that Doyle's 'honesty' exposes every supposed proof of spiritualism. Almost uniformly bad, the novel does spring to life whenever Prof. Challenger is introduced - he remained, even in this story, one of the great comic creations of the 20th century.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I cant summarise. See below., 11 May 1999
By A Customer
I read "The Lost World" long ago - I expect you know the sort of book it is, and whether you will like it or not. But this volume also contains (so far as I am aware) all of the Professor Challenger fiction, and you just HAVE to read it, for its curiosity value, if for nothing else. I draw your attention in particular to "The Land of Mist". It's a bad novel, I admit: but I guarantee that you will be mesmerised by its sheer awfulness. Conan Doyle impudently reveals at the start that the events of "The Lost World" were a fabrication, that they never ocurred; the rest of the book concerns itself with spiritualism. Does it ever! Brave, noble, humble, intelligent and sane spiritualists abound (although there is one charlatan spiritualist who is cowardly, ignoble, arrogant, stupid and tending towards madness). We see how the evidence for spiritualism is overwhelming, and how only the most dastardly conspiracy of the popular press keeps it a secret; we see how bigotted the so-called men of science are; we see how the full machinery of the law is brought to bear to ruin the lives of innocent, hard-working ghost-conjurers. All in all it's hard to imagine a more thorough-going stretch of pure propaganda. (Please don't expect a story.) The cream of the jest is this: Conan Doyle may be biased, but he isn't dishonest (well - not exactly), and so his description of sceances makes it perfectly obvious exactly how he was being gulled. At any rate, if the thought of owning a copy of this appalling and unique book doesn't appeal to you, buy the volume anyway for "The Lost World" and "The Poisoned Belt".
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